Concert on the Green
Patients and Patience
A Sunday in Japan
Art Forms
Fellowship and Food
Immigration Problems
Ticket Problems
Back Home
Reasons for Obesity

Concert on the Green
06/06/02

In certain previous messages, I noted words or expressions related to the word “green.” For the past 17 years, a “Concert on the Green” has been presented in this Clay County in the state of Florida. A “concert” is a musical performance given by singers or instrumentalists, but where do you suppose the “Concert on the Green” is presented? One meaning of “green,”which I did not mention previously, is that special grassy area around the holes on a golf course into which golfers try to hit their golf balls. The “Concert on the Green” is held annually on the last Sunday evening of May on a beautiful golf course not far from our retirement community. At this concert, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra performs outdoors under a large tent. Local artists, including recent winners of music contests and scholarships by high school students, also play before the orchestra begins. Those in attendance may sit on the ground or on folding chairs and just before the orchestra begins playing, their attention is directed skyward to skydivers who jump from an airplane and maneuver their colorful parachutes to a landing right in front of the orchestra. My wife and I have attended this Concert on the Green regularly, but this year was the first year it began to rain before the concert began. Despite the light rain, which did not continue for long, the concert was delightful as usual. This coming weekend, we hope to see and hear the outstanding Japanese violinist who recently played with the Jacksonville Orchestra (who I talked with afterward) who will play with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra at the Aichi Geijutsu Gekijo on Friday and Saturday. (970)

Patients and Patience
06/06/04

Recently, the following quotation appeared in our retirement community’s monthly publication: “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Not long after that was published, a member of our community said to me, “Our community needs more “payshuns.” As my response, I said, “Please spell that word so I can understand the meaning.” When spelled p-a-t-i-e-n-t-s, it denotes people who are receiving medical treatment from doctors or nurses. When spelled p-a-t-i-e-n-c-e, it means the quality of remaining calm, even if we must wait a long time. I thought of this distinction last week on our way from Penney Farms, Florida to Nagoya, Japan. Looking over our flight schedule, I calculated that we spent about 17 hours in the air (2.5 hours from Jacksonville to Detroit, 13 hours from Detroit to Tokyo, 1.5 hours from Tokyo to Nagoya) and 8 hours waiting in airports. Leaving our home at 5:30 a.m., we arrived in Nagoya about 25 hours later, pondering whether we had enough “patience” left to avoid becoming “patients.” Fortunately, we were met at the Nagoya International Airport by our son, his wife and two children, so we went out to eat. On Saturday, we attended the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra Concert and talked with the outstanding violin soloist I had met in Jacksonville previously, following a Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra concert. On the subway, we were surprised to see the announcement that a certain subway car was reserved for women until 9 o’clock in the morning. As a result, women are able to avoid the problems related to the overcrowded cars at that time of day. (971)

A Sunday in Japan
06/06/07

The two-storey house my wife and I are staying in here in Japan was built by our younger son while he taught fulltime at various universities. We are using the room of his elder daughter who is now studying at the International University of Art and Design in Miami, Florida. His 8-year-old son is an avid soccer player, who not only plays soccer at school, but is a member of a local community soccer team as well. Early on the Sunday morning after we arrived, we watched him play and score a couple of points for his team on a soccer field near his home, after which we attended the worship service at a nearby church. It was after lunch that we went to the Nagoya International School to attend the Graduation Ceremony, which was the main reason for our visit. Our granddaughter was one of 18 graduates from seven different countries at the 39th Commencement of this school that my wife and I helped establish and which we and our children and grandchildren have been related to over the years. As usual, the Nagoya City Fire Bureau Band played the national anthems of each of these countries whose national flags were displayed along with the flags of other countries represented in the student body. Speeches were given by the class valedictorian and salutatorian and by a special speaker chosen by the class. Although half of the graduates have Japanese citizenship, our granddaughter was the only one who wore a Japanese kimono under her graduation robe. Following the ceremony, a festive reception was held at which light food and drinks were available as we met and talked with friends and teachers. (972)

Art Forms
06/06/11

Some very short English words have very long explanations or definitions. One example is the word “art.” In classical English, this was a form of the verb “be,” so it is often found in the King James Version of the Bible, following the noun “thou,” meaning “you.” Even today, in some churches, classical English forms are used in prayers to God to indicate deep respect, so we may hear or read such sentences as: “Thou art the Lord.” In modern English, the word may include many different kinds of activities or areas of interest. Drawings, paintings and sculptures are considered works of art. There is an Art Studio in our retirement community and many residents began creating works of art after their retirement. Such works of art are displayed in various places in the community. My wife has been attending classes in a little-known Japanese art form called “paintex,” in which colorful silk powder is carefully brushed onto the oil colors used for painting flowers on a special large white square card called “shikishi,” which is also made of silk. She will be taking back both many tubes of silk powder and silk “shikishi” (which are not available in the U.S.A.) for members of the Paintex Class. Music and drama are other forms of art, which we enjoy in our community. The time we have spent in Japan makes clear to us the differences in art forms depending on the culture in which they are produced. There are obvious differences in the music, drama and paintings produced in Japan and in the west and we consider Japanese children to have more artistic ability from an early age than children in the west. (973)

Fellowship and Food
06/06/14

This is the fourth time my wife and I have returned to Japan following our retirement in 1999. Each visit had a particular purpose which was achieved, but along with the special aim of the visits, we always enjoy such secondary attractions as fellowship and food. Last Saturday, the fellowship was with the 19 men and women who used to be regular listeners to my “Daily Word” telephone messages and attended the quarterly meetings of listeners. Each one gave a short speech in English, telling of personal experiences since our last meeting. Messages were also read from others who could not attend. (Incidentally, for those who are interested, over 2000 “Daily Word” messages are now available at: www.biwa.ne.jp/~syobo/index3.html.) On Sunday morning, my wife and I went to the town of Takahama to attend the church we established over 40 years ago. Following the worship service, at which I preached in Japanese, we enjoyed talking and eating with those who attended. Then, we went to the home of one of the members and continued to reminisce about the old times with a smaller group of members after which we went together to a traditional Japanese restaurant to enjoy a meal including many different types of crab meat. On Monday evening, we went out with our son and family and his wife’s parents to a different kind of traditional Japanese restaurant and enjoyed different kinds of food, including raw fish. At each of these restaurants, we took off our shoes, sat on the floor and were served exotic food in numerous fanciful dishes and having a separate heating device with a flame to heat the food for each one. We have been enjoying both the fellowship and the food. (974)

Immigration Problems
06/06/17

Over the past fifty years, my wife and I have traveled in about fifty countries in all five continents. Usually we have had very few problems in crossing international borders. On two occasions, however, we encountered unexpected problems, one of which occurred when we entered Japan on our present visit. According to our flight schedule, we entered the country at Tokyo and there we needed to board a different flight of the same airline a couple of hours later to fly to Nagoya. Since we entered the country in Tokyo, we followed the crowd through the immigration procedures at that airport. When we were about to board the plane for Nagoya, we were told that we should have waited to go through immigration at Nagoya and that the new stamps in our passports were mistaken, so we had to wait at the immigration offices at both airports for the corrections to be made. On a previous visit to Japan, we stopped in Thailand to visit our daughter who is an editor there. We went with her across the border into Burma for a couple of hours to shop and look around. A few days later, when we were going through immigration procedures before boarding the plane for Tokyo, we were informed that our passports did not have a reentry stamp on them so we were in the country illegally. The plane was ready to depart and was awaiting the two of us to board, but our passports were taken from us and we requested the airplane to wait a bit longer. Finally, our passports were returned with a statement written in Thai, which made it possible for us to leave without spending the night in jail, so we, the flight attendants and the passengers were very happy. (The next message will be related to ticket problems we experienced this time in Japan.) (975)

Ticket Problems
06/06/22

On our present visit to Japan, we do not have a car at our disposal, which is probably beneficial since, at our ages, it would be difficult to suddenly adjust to Japanese driving customs and rules. In fact, we have found it a bit difficult to adjust to Japanese customs even when making use of public transportation. On three occasions, we encountered “ticket problems.” The first was related to boarding a bus. The bus arrived at the bus stop before we did, but we signaled the driver and he waited until we ran to get on. In Japanese busses, one boards at a side door and takes a ticket from an automatic dispenser at that door. When my wife boarded, she was out of breath and thankful to have been able to board but neglected to take her ticket. We had to explain this to the driver, who graciously made the necessary correction. The second time was when we were going through the automatic wicket into a subway station. When my wife went through, she inserted her ticket into the wicket but neglected to take it out after passing through. I immediately followed her, but something happened to my ticket since hers had not been removed, so a subway attendant was called and tried various methods to find the “lost” tickets in the machine. One was not found, but a new ticket was granted so we were permitted to enter. Tickets for subways and trains are purchased at machines into which money is inserted. When going to the city of Kariya, however, I purchased tickets to “Kariya,” but the correct station, “Kariya City,” was one station further. So at that station, the automatic wicket did not permit us to go through until we had made an interphone call, checked another machine and found out that we owed more money. After inserting that amount, we were able to exit. (976)

Back Home
06/06/25

It was early in the morning of Tuesday, May 30, that my wife and I were driven to the Jacksonville Airport by a friend to board an airplane for our flight to Detroit and then on to Tokyo and Nagoya. There were no serious problems on those flights and we arrived as scheduled. After a very enjoyable three weeks, during which we were deeply impressed with the number of stairs we climbed and descended in train and subway stations, which provided us with more exercise than we really needed. We thoroughly enjoyed attending the graduation ceremony of our granddaughter, meeting old friends, including the readers of these messages, and serving at the churches and school that we helped to establish. Early on the morning of Friday, June 23, our son drove us to the bus stop in Nagoya where we boarded a bus for the International Airport. With us was our 8-year-old grandson we were taking to spend a couple of weeks in our retirement community until the arrival of his mother and sister. However, at the airport, we failed to wait in the lobby to meet anyone who had discovered our unadvertised departure time and had come to see us off. The 12-hour flight from Nagoya to Detroit was tiring and the 3-hour wait at Detroit was expected, but it was at Atlanta Airport that the frustration began when we rushed to board the 6:30 p.m. plane for Jacksonville. We were told that, due to a mechanical problem, the flight might be delayed, but all passengers boarded for the takeoff. Because the problem could not be immediately fixed, we had to disembark and wait in the airport for a replacement. We were finally able to board one three hours later. Fortunately, the man who had come to the Jacksonville Airport to meet us was awaiting our arrival and took us and our luggage to our home about midnight—28 hours after we had left our son’s home in Nagoya. (977)

Reasons for Obesity
06/06/28

During my recent three-week visit to Japan, there are a number of lasting impressions of the Japanese people I saw along the street, in churches, stores and restaurants, as well as on subways and trains. I was amazed at the number of people of all ages who were making use of a cell phone with a hinged top to make or receive calls, view pictures or play games. Since both our granddaughter, who just graduated from high school, and our 8-year-old grandson, who we brought back with us, have natural red hair like their father, I was surprised to see many young people who have dyed their black hair to make it more colorful. Another impression is related to the physique of Japanese in comparison to that of Americans. Although the bodies of Japanese in general continue to be shorter and more slender than Americans, from my perspective, they are getting taller and heavier than before, but I am glad that I saw very few Japanese who would be considered obese. It is not surprising that the number of foreign sumo wrestlers continues to increase. A recent article on the front page of the local newspaper in our area, entitled “Fat fact or fiction? New views on obesity,” began with the question: “Why are so many people fat?” According to the research conducted by the Obesity Society, it is not only diet and exercise that are important factors. Included in the “Top Ten” list of alternative explanations are inadequate sleep, pleasant temperatures resulting from the use of air conditioners and heating devices and certain medicines that cause weight gain. We should remember that “good health” involves not only a sound body but a sound mind and spirit as well that concentrates on what is wholesome. (978)